pup:
i’m p. sure 9 out of 10 people I’ve seen making a point to announce that they’re making a point to not change their facebook picture to the red equal sign have not been queer themselves
if you made a point not to change your facebook picture and your reason is something along the lines of: “I have problems with the HRC and this is why:” that is totally valid and you can keep on keeping on (because I agree that the HRC is super shitty about a lot of things particularly trans* issues but this post isn’t about that)
but every time I see a straight person being like “I’M NOT CHANGING MY PICTURE BECAUSE THAT’S NOT REAL ACTIVISM, ALL MY FRIENDS SHOULD ALREADY KNOW HOW I FEEL, WHAT GOOD DOES CHANGING A DUMB PROFILE PICTURE DO”
I just want to take them by the shoulders and be like “shut up. stop. shhhhhh you’re missing the point and it’s not for you, shhhhhh.” I’m sure this doesn’t apply to all queer folks or even all gay/bi folks but for some of us it means a fucking ton to scroll down our facebook feeds and see a bunch of friends doing this simple, uniting thing to show their support for the idea of you being able to get married someday. And yeah, for a lot of the people who I saw changing their pictures, I could’ve guessed that they were already supportive. But I’ve also had a whole bunch of nice moments of seeing friends and acquaintances whose opinions on the subject I’d never discussed showing their support and that shit feels nice. And besides just feeling nice? So many people changing their profile pictures has the additional benefit of spreading awareness and knowledge about the Supreme Court’s discussion on DOMA and Prop 8 which, surprise, not everybody already knew about! I’ve seen a lot of people asking what the deal with the red equal sign is and getting people talking about it who may not normally be talking about it might be a baby step but it’s still pretty dang significant, if you ask me.
tl;dr straight folks need to stop announcing that they’re ~above~ changing their profile pictures when the point is a) showing support for your friends who might really need to see it and b) raising awareness and HEY LOOK it’s doing both of those things.
^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^
yeah like
most of them have no idea why HRC is kind of problematic (people who are and aren’t doing it) so they have no real right to complain
if you have LEGIT PROBLEMS with HRC that’s fine but I don’t really care that much if you don’t want to change your profile picture. Chances are, if you’re my friend, I’m gonna assume you’re for marriage equality. I don’t need an announcement one way or the other…
